2024 Playoffs- 4th Round: Boston Celtics - Dallas Mavericks

[audiosway]

Good points, but we can't say it won't work until this series ends. I'm sure both teams will make adjustments if it does and doesn't. If that's the case, how come the Warriors won titles playing the same way, 5 out? Just asking.

Valid point for sure. Warriors didn't play 5 out iso ball. Their system wasn't 5 out. They always had a 5 that would start at the high post but couldn't shoot 3s if his life depended on it. Unless they went small and Green went to the 5. Most of their system was built on movement and assists.

I agree that we won't know until the series is over. I was just speculating on it. Dallas' problem tonight was not playing team ball. They only had 9 assists. Guys were missing shots, etc. They just looked out of sorts. I figured this would be a feelout game for Kidd. Game 2 will be the real test to see what they look like.

[audiosway]

I think there has to be a scheme installed that includes DL hitting threes before he starts taking them. 

Total guess here, of course, but I think a 5-out scheme that includes DL hitting threes could be in Kidd's master plan, but that the time wasn't really right for implementing it this season. DL is a rookie, he's had plenty to learn and work on, scheme wise, this season, and there hasn't been enough time post trade to get too fancy this season. They needed to master the schemes that they put in place and not complicate things too much.  I think this playoff run is an amazing and wonderful case of being ahead of schedule. 

I hesitate to say all that just because I know, once you get to the finals, getting back is never a given. My thinking is so impacted by 2006. But what's different about this group is that I don't think they've peaked. The 2006 and 2007 teams were the peak for that group. 

Anyway, I predict DLive threes and some 5-out mixed in next season.

I think the team is ahead of schedule to be honest. DL is a rookie and the trade deadline moves gelled fast. This team in a year or two will be nearly unstoppable.

[BolsDamols]

Also worth metioning during the comeback that refs gave some soft fouls to Boston, sending them to the line for free points and allowed them to get their rhythm back.

First time in this playoffs that I saw Lively lost his composure a little bit, surprised he wasnt T’d up

[MarkAguirreWrathofGod]

Also worth metioning during the comeback that refs gave some soft fouls to Boston, sending them to the line for free points and allowed them to get their rhythm back.

First time in this playoffs that I saw Lively lost his composure a little bit, surprised he wasnt T’d up

I said this in the game thread but I was surprised Kidd didn’t challenge Lively foul 5. Lively’ arms were arched down but they didn’t touch Brown and Brown launched himself into D-Live’s body.

 I also think Kidd’s game feel as far as timeouts to stop Boston runs and when his stars needed a rest for their heavy legs was sorely lacking. Never been his strength.

[RGP1981]

Welp, this is what I was afraid of, the Celtics coming out in game 1 and rolling like a well-oiled machine. Let's hope for better in game 2 onwards.

Anyway, the difference in strength, muscle, conditioning between the Mavs and Celtics is quite stark. Almost everyone on the Celtics' main players seems fitter and stronger than their counterparts on the Mavericks. I think the Mavericks players need to put in work during the off-season to narrow that gap.

Physically:
White > Kyrie
Jrue = DJJ > Green
Brown >>> Luka
Tatum > PJW
Porky > Lively
Gafford > Horford > Kleber

[LukaMVP]

Welp, this is what I was afraid of, the Celtics coming out in game 1 and rolling like a well-oiled machine. Let's hope for better in game 2 onwards.

Anyway, the difference in strength, muscle, conditioning between the Mavs and Celtics is quite stark. Almost everyone on the Celtics' main players seems fitter and stronger than their counterparts on the Mavericks. I think the Mavericks players need to put in work during the off-season to narrow that gap.

White > Kyrie
Jrue = DJJ > Green
Brown >>> Luka
Tatum > PJW
Porky > Lively
Horford = Gafford > Kleber

although I agree the Celtics are the better team and we are the underdawg , it's a bit early to give it up. we lost first games in the first and second rounds this year, and we lost the first game in the finals 13 yrs ago too.

[RGP1981]

although I agree the Celtics are the better team and we are the underdawg , it's a bit early to give it up. we lost first games in the first and second rounds this year, and we lost the first game in the finals 13 yrs ago too.

I'm not giving it up. Simply saying they look in better physical condition... which doesn't help if they're also more talented overall. Looks like an uphill struggle. It ain't over until the fat lady sings though.

[GATA]

Really dumb subs by Kidd. Luka can’t come off the floor. A week between games, and now 3 days before every game. Just idiotic

[RGP1981]

It must be nice to be Tatum.  He can just sit back while the rest of his team takes over scoring.  Celtics with 6 players with double digit scoring.

I saw this quote elsewhere, it rings true.

"The Celtics are the ultimate game of whack-a-mole. Stop one player, two more show up and torch you."

Their FO deserves the most credit for any success, for putting their team together. More than any one of their players, such as Tatum.

[Chicagojk]

that was a tough one. On to the the next one. A lot of things have to go better and several keys. I think one of the big keys of the series is can Dallas keep their bigs on the floor and can they be impactful as they have been this year. Last night the answer was no.

[Chicagojk]

a lot to ask, but I wonder the only way to slow the Celtics offense down is when they do get a switch with Lively, Maxi or PJ that they can make the Celtics create difficult shots with everyone else not leaving their man. Ideallly it would be contested two point shots. Not sure if that is possible.

On the other hand, it felt like the Celtics shot the ball better than they did. 16 threes is a lot but only 38% form 3. The first 6 minutes of the third was our time. We got it to 8, but we probably should have been closer. I guess what i am saying. Dallas needs to be much better on offense Need ways to punish them besides Luka doing his thing.

[ThisIStheYear]

Celtics are the better team but the Mavs have the best player with a very good supporting cast. Usually, in that situation, the team with the better player wins. This was the situation MJ faced, for example, in all of his first three titles.

The bottom line for this game, the Mavs held Boston to 38% shooting from the three and 107 points. Thats a solid performance I’ll take every time against the number 1 offense. But the Mavs offense was infantile when it’s going to need to be great. It has been since Carlisle left. They were number 1 with Carlisle, have better players now, but haven’t touched those heights. The scheme is too simple. Kidd has done a great job with defense, development, and culture, but he needs to bring in an offensive coordinator in the off season. It’s their number 1 need, greater than any need on the roster.

[surfpuckmd]

Boston is a really unique team and I cannot recall another similar team composition.

Their top 6 players are all good-to-great offensive players.  Their top 6 players are all good-to-great on defense.  Their top 6 guys can all shoot from 3.  Those same top 6 players are all fairly high IQ veterans and other than Porzingis, have an incredible amount of playoff experience.  

They also seem well-coached.  Even the Warrior super-teams never had a top 6 who were so good.  

It will take not only some amazing Luka and Kyrie performances for us to win the series but some remarkable 3-point shooting from our role players for us to win.

This is a great test for us.  After game one, my hopes for the series have changed somewhat.  I'll consider it a successful series if all the remainder of games are competitive and we take them to at least 6 games.  I'd love to win the series but will be happy to just be competitive.  It's been an amazing season and I can enjoy the Finals even if we don't win it all.

[KillerLeft]

Celtics are the better team but the Mavs have the best player with a very good supporting cast. Usually, in that situation, the team with the better player wins. This was the situation MJ faced, for example, in all of his first three titles.

The bottom line for this game, the Mavs held Boston to 38% shooting from the three and 107 points. Thats a solid performance I’ll take every time against the number 1 offense. But the Mavs offense was infantile when it’s going to need to be great. It has been since Carlisle left. They were number 1 with Carlisle, have better players now, but haven’t touched those heights.  The scheme is too simple.  Kidd has done a great job with defense, development, and culture, but he needs to bring in an offensive coordinator in the off season. It’s their number 1 need, greater than any need on the roster.

I’m not ready to get into the what ifs of next year yet, but I agree with this assessment of game one. During the game, it felt like the Celtics were absolutely annihilating the Mavs defense, but the score wasn’t crazy in the end, and the percentages look about average. I think it was possibly a pretty decent effort, defensively, given the emotionality of game 1 on their home court. I’m not sure we can expect much better in the series, and in fact, I bet the Celtics have a couple of much more effective offensive games in them.

The real problem was the Dallas offense. I swear, if it weren’t for garbage time, I am not sure the Mavs would have broken 80. Luka got some Luka shots, and even missed some that he normally makes, and maligned as Kyrie was in the game thread, I thought he created a lot of good looks for himself. They just didn’t go in. However, none of the Mavs team offensive actions amounted to diddly squat in this game. It was complete dominance by the Celtics defense for about 38 of the 48 minutes. PJ Washington had some nice moments of exploiting mismatches and playing hard in the paint, but that was kind of part of the problem, because time and time again we saw the Mavs doing things they don’t normally do on the offensive side of the ball. That’s extremely concerning, because it tells me they were reacting instead of implementing a plan.

Gafford and Lively were both pretty bad, defensively, but most of us expected that. We all hope they can find a way for those guys to contribute to the series on defense, but that hope is based on how important they are to the Mavs offense. The thing is, in game one, they did not contribute on offense. The screens weren’t as effective. They were both abysmal on the offensive glass. They were a non-factor in the screen roll game, which was concerning. Dallas basically acquiesced to Boston’s desire to take that away without even testing it. That really, really needs to change in game two, at least for Lively. If neither of those guys are playing well on at least one side of the court, the Mavs’ rotation no longer makes any sense, whatsoever. And, if neither of them are rebounding, or freeing up anyone on screens (forget about scoring), what even is the point of TRYING to make it work with them on defense? Big yikes on that. Interested to see how things play out in game two.

I couldn’t believe my eyes with Porziņģis. I have been harder on him than most, but I will be damned if he didn’t affect the game on defense much more overtly than Gobert did at any point of the Minnesota series. I have to believe that this was just something Dallas was unprepared for, and that he will never seem that dominant again in the series. If I didn’t believe that, I might not be able to force myself to keep watching, because there are very few players in the NBA I dislike as much as Kristaps Porziņģis. I am fine with him getting all of those post touches, because I don’t care what the stats say about his season – that will end up not being a plus for Boston by the end of the series. In fact, I think Dallas found something in the second half by switching Luka onto him. But, if he really is going to affect the game on defense, that is going to be a particularly tough way for me to stomach the Mavs losing this series.

I said something like this in the game thread, but the really concerning thing was that Boston played exactly how they wanted to, exactly how they have been playing all season, on both ends of the court. It felt like Dallas was searching for their identity in this series for pretty much the entire first half. Boston is clearly going to isolate Luka in space far more than any other team has been able to do this postseason, and that’s scary, but the scariest thing is I kind of felt like the Dallas plan was for Luka to isolate Boston players in space, and it didn’t really seem like they found one he could be effective against, other than the Prichard minutes, which Luka dominated thoroughly. Pritchard will not play enough for that to be a significant part of their plan, so they have got to find something on offense against Boston’s top six that’s advantageous. So far, I’ve seen nothing that remotely qualifies.

Very sobering game one, but it is only one game. Time for Kidd to earn that extension they’ve already given him.

MAVS IN 6!

[HoosierDaddyKid]

The best player on the floor was Jaylen Brown on both sides of the ball. He blocked two dunks on DJJ, he blocked a Kyrie layup. He dunked on Gafford, he played with force in scoring 22 pts. KP was instrumental in the win, but Brown was the gate keeper. This is the conundrum dealing with the C's. Tatum didn't have a great game, and they still got it done. The next game it could be White, or Holiday who goes off. Dallas has to find a wrinkle to get the bigs involved, but they are at a disadvantage guarding KP and Horford as both of them play on the perimeter and that brings them out the paint to open driving lanes for the C's to go to rim, or drive and kick actions. It's tough, but this is where Kidd needs to earn that extension.

[Mavs2021]

The best player on the floor was Jaylen Brown on both sides of the ball. He blocked two dunks on DJJ, he blocked a Kyrie layup. He dunked on Gafford, he played with force in scoring 22 pts. KP was instrumental in the win, but Brown was the gate keeper. This is the conundrum dealing with the C's. Tatum didn't have a great game, and they still got it done. The next game it could be White, or Holiday who goes off. Dallas has to find a wrinkle to get the bigs involved, but they are at a disadvantage guarding KP and Horford as both of them play on the perimeter and that brings them out the paint to open driving lanes for the C's to go to rim, or drive and kick actions. It's tough, but this is where Kidd needs to earn that extension.

I was so pissed when the mofo prematurely signed an extension with Boston. Him and Edwards, before they fulfilled their potential were my ideal backcourt partners for Luka.

[DanSchwartzgan]

Part of being able to impose our will with our bigs has been that the other teams have had people we could cheat off of (often a big).  That isn't the case here.  Everyone on the Celtics can make you pay from deep.  I felt pretty confident about the Minnesota series because I could see matchups that would allow our stars to thrive offensively and I could easily see how our D could stop their stars.  I'm confident in our ability to score against Boston, but they present the biggest challenge yet to our D.  There will be games where they are hitting shots that we just won't have an answer for (hopefully not four of those games).

I think the most interesting matchup is Lively vs. KP.  If we win this series it is probably because Lively really is a star and we just don't yet understand how good he really is.  If we lose this series it is probably because Gafford/Maxi weren't enough for KP/Horford.  I can see us winning the Lively minutes.  I'm a little worried about the non-Lively minutes.  Part of our formula so far has been to steal one of the first two games.  If we go down 0-2 we might have to blink and be the team that makes the first big adjustment (which would be much more Maxi at center and much less Gafford).  As you say, if this happens the issue will be at the defensive end for Dallas.

Some of this ended up being pretty accurate (I thought Jason Timpf was spot on when he suggested there might be two blowout wins for Boston).  KP's impact crushed Lively's impact.  Neither Gafford nor Maxi was an adequate answer in any way.

But, I was dead wrong about our ability to score.  I don't think last night had much to do with some 5-out vs. not style of offense.  We lost because they have 5 defenders who don't need help to stay in front of our players.  Their rim protectors can hit 3's.  Good for them.  But first and foremost, they protected the rim.  They sped us up (except for a brief moment in the 3rd) and made us take much harder 3's above the break.  Not only did Luka only have one assist.  He only generated six assist opportunities (which we hit one of).  Let that sink in for a moment.

I think we all knew Boston would be tough on nights they were hitting shots.  I think we also knew they'd take certain things away from our offense.  I'm not sure I believed they would be able to take away almost everything we try to do.  We didn't win any of the sub statistical categories to make up for the shooting disparity.  Game over.  Just like the hand-wringing after game one against LAC, this will long be forgotten if we steal game two.  If we don't steal game two, it is going to take something Herculean to get this to six or seven games.

[fifteenth]

Some of this ended up being pretty accurate (I thought Jason Timpf was spot on when he suggested there might be two blowout wins for Boston).  KP's impact crushed Lively's impact.  Neither Gafford nor Maxi was an adequate answer in any way.

But, I was dead wrong about our ability to score.  I don't think last night had much to do with some 5-out vs. not style of offense.  We lost because they have 5 defenders who don't need help to stay in front of our players.  Their rim protectors can hit 3's.  Good for them.  But first and foremost, they protected the rim.  They sped us up (except for a brief moment in the 3rd) and made us take much harder 3's above the break.  Not only did Luka only have one assist.  He only generated six assist opportunities (which we hit one of).  Let that sink in for a moment.

I think we all knew Boston would be tough on nights they were hitting shots.  I think we also knew they'd take certain things away from our offense.  I'm not sure I believed they would be able to take away almost everything we try to do.  We didn't win any of the sub statistical categories to make up for the shooting disparity.  Game over.  Just like the hand-wringing after game one against LAC, this will long be forgotten if we steal game two.  If we don't steal game two, it is going to take something Herculean to get this to six or seven games.

spot on, imo

[dirkfansince1998]

Right now I struggle to come up with possible changes. What can the Mavs do to create easier looks. Is there a way to go after Horford and KP that doesn't involve PJ or DJJ screening. Is there a way to exploit the height advantage in the paint if the Celtics continue to guard Lively/Gafford with Tatum (Tatum hasn't been as good on offense but he is the key on defense).
Can they find a money play like the double drag screen against the Wolves.

Would probably try to involve Kyrie and Luka in the screen action. Celtics can switch guard/guard screens but if it a double drag or spain pick and roll it is difficult to execute them. Whatever it takes to create mismatches.
Are post touches for the bigs an option. Lively and Gafford have no real back to the basket game but the Mavs have to punish the Celtics when they switch White or Holiday onto Gafford/Lively.
What can PJ and DJJ do to take advantage of the space they get at the top of the key. Driving into KP or bricking 3s isn't the solution. Maybe follow it up with a dribble hand off for Kyrie that forces KP/Horford to step up.

[HoosierDaddyKidd]

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5547735...porzingis/



Have the Celtics perfected the modern NBA offense?